Posted by fuzz54 on August 20, 2007, at 12:16:51
In reply to Re: Lost years, posted by linkadge on August 20, 2007, at 10:31:46
I spent 28 years as a lonely rejected person. I had terrible anxiety, but didn't really know it since I assumed everyone had anxiety like me but found a way to be normal. The depressions started as soon as I left college to get out into the world. I had a degree in engineering and absolutely no desire to be an engineer after a few years of work. Take that coupled with social anxiety, generalized anxiety, anhedonia, and more severe and freqeunt depressions and that's a recipe for disaster. I did a lot of the research and soul searching that many people here did or are doing. I went into therapy and started to realize that I had indeed "lost" the last 28 years of my life to psychological disease. Finally I came to the end of my road and was at the bottom of a bottomless pit with a pin prick of light up top. That little bit of hope hanging way up above me seemed maybe as far as away as the moon. I realized then that I had a choice to make and if I was going to choose to go back up into the light then I was going to have to do anything and everything I could to change my life and myself. I was determined to stick with it through therapy, meds, behavorial changes, etc... for as long as it took. I learned to be patient and do the three steps forward, two steps back dance. Three years later I am thinking about getting married and starting a family. That was unthinkable and not even a possiblity three years ago. The last 28 years are still with me, but they have given me a strength and sensitivity that I think only comes from profound suffering. That's a valuable thing to have going into the next 60 years of life. The point I'm getting at is that your past might not be happy or what you wanted (you are rare and blessed if you can say it was), but it comes with you as you get better. And as Linkadge pointed out, you probably will see it in a different light someday and sift through your past to find the diamonds buried in all the dirt.
poster:fuzz54
thread:777020
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070815/msgs/777361.html